<...>Hugh Hewitt's so-called 'support' of the military does it far more harm than it does good.<...>What is particularly disturbing is how he and others have artificially
conflated the Newsweek error and the NY Times story. This is no
accident, but an act of intentional and outright propaganda. The
Newsweek story may have been inaccurate, but the NY Times
story was not. To read Hugh, you would think both were inconsequential
and simply the result of a media hostile to the military. "Nothing here- just the military-hating mainstream media."...

Is the media anti-military?

For the record, I don't believe that it's anti-military. While the biases of many journalists lean left, there's nothing to indicate that they are inherently anti-military. There are many positive MSM stories about the military (just maybe not in the big outlets).

However, there are some very left-wing, anti-Bush, people in the media, and they look for anything to make the administration suffer. In their search for Nixons, they also want to uncover "Failure". "Quagmire". Etc. If they have to run over the good work of our military, they will. If they have to highlight for months the scandal created by a clerk and a few MPs, so be it (bear with me a moment). If they foment hatred around the world for Americans, no big deal...

There are some great journalists out there. But the statements made by the management/representatives/editors of the MSM - por ejemplo, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan and Linda Foley - represent slander.

And Newsweek, here and abroad, is stoking the fires of Anti-American sentiment. Why? I don't know, but I suspect it is to sell magazines (and, yes, for me it's personal with Newsweek). I don't so much blame the reporter as I do the management/editors.

Is Newsweek that naive to think that the pictures they put on the cover and the stories that they write won't affect our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan or our ability to fight and win the War on Terror?

You might have been able to argue against that statement before the Koran in the toilet fable. But not now.

I want a fair media (just as John Cole does). If the New York Times published one positive Iraq story for every ten Abu Ghraib stories during the Abu Ghraib fever of last year, I would be surprised. So, are there no success stories worth mentioning in the New York Times?

Abu Ghraib was a legitimate story that should have been reported. I've written that many, many times and probably mentioned that in every single interview I've given over the last six to nine months. The soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib should be and are being punished. And Abu Ghraib is being rehashed in the latest assault on the military (they see a pattern in prisoner abuse). However, stop the comparison to My Lai.

Abu Ghraib was no My Lai Massacre.

Not even close.

Yet Abu Ghraib was on the front page of the New York Times over thirty times during the initial run of the story. I don't have issue with the reporting of the story. I take issue with the way it was used and milked dry in order to influence people's opinion of the war, of the military and of the Bush Administration. Those are management and editor decisions - usually not not in the purview of journalists.

I agree that media should be free to report the truth. And I think that the media should be held just as accountable as the troops who commit abuses. If the media commits slander against those troops, they should be taken to task.

So how is the Fourth Estate held accountable? Not by the government.

They are held accountable by us - the consumers.

While we agree on most of my points above, John Cole misses the main point of Hugh Hewitt's post. I believe that Cole reads Hewitt's post, intended to be critical of the media, as Hugh supporting Soldiers who abuse prisoners and calling for the media to cover those abuses up. That's more than a bit of a stretch.

I read the quoted passages and just don't see Hugh calling for the media to not report abuses. I do see Hugh criticizing the media for the way it reports those stories as Watergate-like government cover-ups...the way suppositions are used, intermingling with the facts, to make a story seem more sexy than it is, more damning to the administration than it is (or was). And, now there's a theme in the media about there being a "policy of abuse". [BTW, I just had lunch on Friday with one of the Army's Interrogation trainers from the MI schoolhouse at Fort Huachucha. He wrote the book on how to Interrogate prisoners. If anyone knew of a policy of abuse allowed during interrogations, it would be him. As most of you suspected, there is no such thing.] But the rehash of Abu Ghraib and other cases of abuse at Gitmo will be used to build another conspiracy theory.

Rather, Jordan, Foley, Newsweek - fake stories, forged documents, and baseless accusations - must be addressed and not swept under the rug. And their lies would have continued if not for ordinary Americans looking into their accusations.

Soon, I'll be asking for some help from some of you, as consumers, to counter people like Linda Foley. I'm not calling for censuring the media. I'm calling for the lies to end, the slander to stop.

<...>Hugh Hewitt's so-called 'support' of the military does it far more harm than it does good.<...>What is particularly disturbing is how he and others have artificially
conflated the Newsweek error and the NY Times story. This is no
accident, but an act of intentional and outright propaganda. The
Newsweek story may have been inaccurate, but the NY Times
story was not. To read Hugh, you would think both were inconsequential
and simply the result of a media hostile to the military. "Nothing here- just the military-hating mainstream media."...

Is the media anti-military?

For the record, I don't believe that it's anti-military. While the biases of many journalists lean left, there's nothing to indicate that they are inherently anti-military. There are many positive MSM stories about the military (just maybe not in the big outlets).

However, there are some very left-wing, anti-Bush, people in the media, and they look for anything to make the administration suffer. In their search for Nixons, they also want to uncover "Failure". "Quagmire". Etc. If they have to run over the good work of our military, they will. If they have to highlight for months the scandal created by a clerk and a few MPs, so be it (bear with me a moment). If they foment hatred around the world for Americans, no big deal...

There are some great journalists out there. But the statements made by the management/representatives/editors of the MSM - por ejemplo, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan and Linda Foley - represent slander.

And Newsweek, here and abroad, is stoking the fires of Anti-American sentiment. Why? I don't know, but I suspect it is to sell magazines (and, yes, for me it's personal with Newsweek). I don't so much blame the reporter as I do the management/editors.

Is Newsweek that naive to think that the pictures they put on the cover and the stories that they write won't affect our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan or our ability to fight and win the War on Terror?

You might have been able to argue against that statement before the Koran in the toilet fable. But not now.

I want a fair media (just as John Cole does). If the New York Times published one positive Iraq story for every ten Abu Ghraib stories during the Abu Ghraib fever of last year, I would be surprised. So, are there no success stories worth mentioning in the New York Times?

Abu Ghraib was a legitimate story that should have been reported. I've written that many, many times and probably mentioned that in every single interview I've given over the last six to nine months. The soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib should be and are being punished. And Abu Ghraib is being rehashed in the latest assault on the military (they see a pattern in prisoner abuse). However, stop the comparison to My Lai.

Abu Ghraib was no My Lai Massacre.

Not even close.

Yet Abu Ghraib was on the front page of the New York Times over thirty times during the initial run of the story. I don't have issue with the reporting of the story. I take issue with the way it was used and milked dry in order to influence people's opinion of the war, of the military and of the Bush Administration. Those are management and editor decisions - usually not not in the purview of journalists.

I agree that media should be free to report the truth. And I think that the media should be held just as accountable as the troops who commit abuses. If the media commits slander against those troops, they should be taken to task.

So how is the Fourth Estate held accountable? Not by the government.

They are held accountable by us - the consumers.

While we agree on most of my points above, John Cole misses the main point of Hugh Hewitt's post. I believe that Cole reads Hewitt's post, intended to be critical of the media, as Hugh supporting Soldiers who abuse prisoners and calling for the media to cover those abuses up. That's more than a bit of a stretch.

I read the quoted passages and just don't see Hugh calling for the media to not report abuses. I do see Hugh criticizing the media for the way it reports those stories as Watergate-like government cover-ups...the way suppositions are used, intermingling with the facts, to make a story seem more sexy than it is, more damning to the administration than it is (or was). And, now there's a theme in the media about there being a "policy of abuse". [BTW, I just had lunch on Friday with one of the Army's Interrogation trainers from the MI schoolhouse at Fort Huachucha. He wrote the book on how to Interrogate prisoners. If anyone knew of a policy of abuse allowed during interrogations, it would be him. As most of you suspected, there is no such thing.] But the rehash of Abu Ghraib and other cases of abuse at Gitmo will be used to build another conspiracy theory.

Rather, Jordan, Foley, Newsweek - fake stories, forged documents, and baseless accusations - must be addressed and not swept under the rug. And their lies would have continued if not for ordinary Americans looking into their accusations.

Soon, I'll be asking for some help from some of you, as consumers, to counter people like Linda Foley. I'm not calling for censuring the media. I'm calling for the lies to end, the slander to stop.

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The Authors

Former Paratrooper and Army Officer, "Blackfive" started this blog upon learning of the valorous sacrifice of a friend that was not reported by the journalist whose life he saved. Email: blackfive AT gmail DOT com

Instapinch
Bill Paisley, otherwise known as Pinch, is a 22 year (ongoing) active and
reserve naval aviator. He blogs over at www.instapinch.com on a veritable
cornucopia of various and sundry items and will bring a tactical naval
aviator's perspective to Blackfive. Readers be warned: any comments of or
about the F-14 Tomcat will be reverential and spoken in low, hushed tones.
Email: wpaisley AT comcast DOT net

Mr. Wolf has over 26 years in the Army, Army NG, and USAR. He’s Airborne with 5 years as an NCO, before becoming an officer. Mr. Wolf has had 4 company commands. Signal Corp is his basic branch, and Public Affairs is his functional area. He recently served 22 straight months in Kuwait and Iraq, in Intel, PA, and senior staff of MNF-I. Mr. Wolf is now an IT executive. He is currently working on a book on media and the Iraq war. Functional gearhead.

In Iraq, he received the moniker of Mr. Wolf after the Harvey Kietel character in Pulp Fiction, when "challenges" arose, they called on Mr. Wolf...
Email: TheDOTMrDOTWolfAT gmail DOT com

Deebow is a Staff Sergeant and a Military Police Squad Leader in the Army National Guard. In a previous life, he served in the US Navy. He has over 19 years of experience in both the Maritime and Land Warfare; including deployments to Southwest Asia, Thailand, the South Pacific, South America and Egypt. He has served as a Military Police Team Leader and Protective Services Team Leader and he has served on assignments with the US State Department, US Air Force Security Police, US Army Criminal Investigation Division, and the US Drug Enforcement Administration. He recently spent time in Afghanistan working with, training and fighting alongside Afghan Soldiers and is now focused on putting his 4 year Political Science degree to work by writing about foreign policy, military security policy and politics.

McQ has 28 years active and reserve service. Retired. Infantry officer. Airborne and Ranger. Consider my 3 years with the 82nd as the most fun I ever had with my clothes on. Interests include military issues and policy and veteran's affairs.
Email: mcq51 -at - bellsouth -dot- net

Tantor is a former USAF navigator/weapon system officer (WSO) in F-4E Phantoms who served in the US, Asia, and Europe. He is now a curmudgeonly computer geek in Washington, DC, picking the taxpayers pocket. His avocations are current events, aviation, history, and conservative politics.

Twenty-three years of Active and Reserve service in the US Army in SF (18B), Infantry and SOF Signal jobs with operational deployments to Bosnia and Africa. Since retiring he's worked as Senior Defense Analyst on SOF and Irregular Warfare projects and currently ensconced in the emerging world of Cyberspace.

The Authors Emeritus

Major Pain --
A Marine who began his blog in Iraq and reflects back on what he learned there and in Afghanistan. To the point opinions, ideas and thoughts on military, political and the media from One Marine’s View.Email: onemarinesview AT yahoo DOT com

Uber Pig was an Infantryman from late 1991 until early 1996, serving with Second Ranger Battalion, I Corps, and then 25th Infantry Division. At the time, the Army discriminated against enlisted soldiers who wanted use the "Green to Gold" program to become officers, so he left to attend Stanford University. There, he became expert in detecting, avoiding, and surviving L-shaped ambushes, before dropping out to be as entrepreneurial as he could be. He is now the founder of a software startup serving the insurance and construction industries, and splits time between Lake Tahoe, Boonville, and San Francisco, CA.

Uber Pig writes for Blackfive a) because he's the proud brother of an enlisted Civil Affairs Reservist who currently serves in Iraq, b) because he looks unkindly on people who make it harder for the military in general, and for his brother in particular, to succeed at their missions and come home in victory, and c) because the Blackfive readers and commenters help keep him sane.

COB6 spent 24 years in the active duty Army that included 5 combat tours with service in the 1st Ranger Battalion and 1st Special Forces Group . COB6 was enlisted (E-7) and took the OCS route to a commission. COB6 retired a few years back as a field grade Infantry officer.
Currently COB6 has a son in the 82nd Airborne that just returned from his third tour and has a newly commissioned daughter in the 4th Infantry Division.